As the skies cleared over the flood-ravaged Western Cape, farmers, local authorities and thousands of ordinary people were counting the cost of homes, roads, bridges and crops swept away.

And one family was mourning the loss of their daughter Daniella de Wee, 17, who is presumed to have drowned while crossing the Hex River near Touws River on her way to write her Afrikaans matric exam on Wednesday. Her body has not been recovered.

Infrastructure and crops have been seriously damaged in the Overberg, Winelands and Breede Valley areas, and Premier Lynne Brown, who visited several of the flood-hit areas on Friday, said the province had been hit by global warming.

"We are already having to deal with the effects of climate change and the government is drawing up long-term measures to deal with it," she said.

Across the province roads were blocked, electricity poles blown into streets and towns left in darkness as storms battered the region.

The South African Defence Force was on the frontline for some of the most dramatic rescues in ravaged areas like Roberston, Bonnievale and Worcester. Marius van den Heever, of the defence force, said they were confronted with "unbelievable amounts of water".

In the Breede River Winelands municipality two communities, Montagu and Montagu West, were still cut off by Friday afternoon. Homes and holiday homes were washed away by raging rivers, hundreds of people were displaced and the defence force navigated one of the province's worst floods in years to airlift flood victims to safety and drop food parcels.

And the province says it will only have a clear indication of the extent of the wide-ranging damage by next week. Yet the agricultural industry alone already predicts its losses will total billions of rands.

The N1 highway near Touws River was closed due to bridge damage and the 3 000 residents of Touws River have been cut off and have no clean water. More than a thousand people were stranded on the N1 freeway at Donkies Bridge near Touws River yesterday.

The arterial highway, which links Cape Town to Johannesburg, had been cut since Thursday night.

Trucks were backed up for 2km on the Cape Town side on Friday. Unable to turn around on the narrow road, they had to wait hours to be evacuated. Some drivers had to sleep in their cabs.

Nearly 800 hectares of table grapes worth millions of rands have been lost, while the apricot crop in the Robertson, Ashton and Bonnievale area was also under threat.

The Hex River in De Doorns burst its banks and 45 farms were inaccessible.

Boetie Kriel from Nuldesparundum farm said in all his 32 years of farming he had never come across flooding like this.

Kriel said damage to the farms along Hex river was estimated to be at R250-R300 million. "It's all gone, we are having to crisis-manage," he said.

Roy Veldtman, disaster manager for the Winelands district, said rivers and dams were at their highest levels ever.

"Because of continuous burning on the Langeberg mountain since 1995 there was nothing to hold the soil and the water came down faster and with lots of mud," he said.

Brown said on Friday: "We can clearly see there is a pattern that has developed over a number of years.

"The Western Cape needs long-term planning as the effects of climate change are felt more and more. We cannot only be reactive, even though we are really good at reacting to disasters.

"We need long-term plans so we can avoid damage to municipal infrastructure, roads and the costs we've had to the economy and, more important, the effects it has on the poor. Climate change affects the poor most of all.

"Roads van be rebuilt but peoples' lives cannot."